


Call Me By Your Name

by trololonasty



Category: Luke Cage (TV)
Genre: Angst, Drama, Drama & Romance, F/M, Implied/Referenced Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-16
Updated: 2018-08-16
Packaged: 2019-06-28 06:52:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15702078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trololonasty/pseuds/trololonasty
Summary: Johnson. Dillard. Stokes. Had things worked out differently, she would have had a completely different name now.





	Call Me By Your Name

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [all my sins remembered](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15171545) by [thefudge](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thefudge/pseuds/thefudge). 



> I won't even pretend to know how to immitate Patois, writing in English is challenging enough as it is. You all know it's there.

Names have magic power. They protect, scaring away evil. They also haunt, becoming a curse. Johnson. Dillard. Stokes. Had things worked out differently, she would have had a completely different name now. But it’s hard to make history, and it’s even harder to rewrite it. What’s done is done.

Mamie Johnson cared for her as if she was her own although insisted that she shouldn’t forget who her real mother was. Tilda nodded obediently because she knew she had to, because she knew it was the right thing to do. But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t force herself to love a strange woman from the photo she kept in her bedside table, secretly wishing that one day Mamie would earnestly call her her daughter.

She sorted out her priorities when she grew up. Her love for the Johnsons didn’t lessen but she understood why Mamie kept telling her that her birthmother was Mariah – she didn’t want Tilda to forget her roots, forget who she was and where she came from. Because it’s so important to know that you’re not alone, that generations after generations of your ancestors are backing up every step of your life. No matter what people they were, what they did – family came first. Always.

That’s why she decided to follow in her father’s footsteps. She set herself a goal to become as generous and selfless as Jackson Dillard was – to help people without awaiting something in return. With her life, she wanted to honour his memory, to do him justice, to crown him with immortality. And maybe – just maybe – to win if not love, but at least respect of the woman who was called her mother even if she never actually acted like one.

She should have known that this undertaking of hers was doomed from the start – their relationship with Mariah was doomed. Every time when it seemed that they’d moved one step forward, something always took them two, if not three, steps back. So was the life, apparently. However, even after all these years – after she’d left her in somebody else’s care and then moved on to forgetting her entire existence – they still kept trying. Because family came first, didn’t it? Always.

It all fell into place when Mariah told her the truth. At first, she refused to believed it for it would have been so much easier if it turned out that the woman’d made it all up, said it out of spite to get under her skin, to drag her in the mud, to hurt her, to humiliate her. But the look on Mariah’s face spoke louder than words; she saw shame in her eyes, she saw suffering and disgust, and, more importantly, anger. At Pete, at Mable, at herself, even at Cornell. And at her, nearly most of all at her. Something inside her broke, but at least she understood now. Everything that had ever happened to her finally made sense. The picture became whole. The last piece of the puzzle pierced right through her heart. 

Jackson Dillard turned out to be the same fiction as the loving Johnsons – the family she had never been a part of, not really. Thus, Tilda Johnson as well as Tilda Dillard were fakes. Only Tilda Stokes was real. 

Mariah had hoped that changing the name would help her to run away from herself, from her shameful past, the shady family business, even shadier history. Naivety that wasn’t typical of her always so calculating mother. For some reason, Tilda realized much faster that you couldn’t run away from the thing that coursing through your veins. There was no escape. 

Everyone had their own cross to bear, and it just happened that her own was imprinted right under her skin.

 

She hadn’t had a clue that it was possible to hate so strongly, so deeply, so furiously. She always thought herself to be above prejudice, above all that Shakespearean family feud, vendettas and stuff like that that her relatives, who she’d never wished to have anything in common with, were engrossed in. And look at her now. The irony of fate in all its deadly glory. She wanted to climb up the wall or better – crawl in a hole and never see the light of day ever again. She didn’t feel like she deserved anything better. The child of incest and rape – a Stokes twice over.

She knew, however, that she would muster up her willpower sooner or later. She would keep on doing what she had been doing, what she thought was right, and would console herself by thinking that none of that mattered (but of course it mattered, it all mattered). “Family comes first”. Bullshit.

A bit more of that – and she would throw up.

Looking at him, she couldn’t help thinking about all the things her family was to blame for: the McIvers’ murder, the massacre at “Gwen’s” – all of them were just the tip of the iceberg of the sequence of crimes, each of those had ruined someone’s life. And she – oh, she was one – no, two – hundred percent responsible for it. If he wished to kill each and every one of the Stokes family, he should definitely start with her. A pure product born out of filth and vice hardly deserved the right to exist. 

“I’m so sorry,” she said and she didn’t lie. She truly was sorry – and not only for those innocent who’d died. She felt sorry for those who’d survived as well, doomed to live day by day with the excruciating pain of loss. She felt sorry for John. And a little – for herself.

But she wasn’t going to indulge her weaknesses and drown in self-pity. She just wanted to erase that cursed name from her life, well aware that it was impossible, that for that to happen she’d have to turn herself inside out, to replace every cell in her body. She wasn’t going to repeat her mother’s mistakes, but maybe she didn’t have a choice. Maybe she was doomed. 

 

“I just can’t figure out why you still haven’t killed me.” Tilting her head a little, she looked at him without fear, curious. 

“You heal me,” he chuckled. Then added after some contemplation, “And I like you.”

Frowning, she shook her head. She cared about him, but she wasn’t ready to receive the same care in return. She didn’t believe she deserved it.

“You wouldn’t have said that if you knew the truth.” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath as though she was about to jump into ice cold water – or the flames of hell. “My father… My father isn’t Jackson Dillard. It’s Pete Stokes.”

When she opened her eyes at last, afraid of lingering silence, he stood so very close to her, not even moving. She didn’t know what to think, but there was no anger in his eyes – at least, not at her. He traced his finger down her cheek tentatively, and her body shivered. She swallowed. 

“I’m a pureblood Stokes, an abomination…” He didn’t let her finish, putting his thumb to her lips. 

“You wouldn’t have said that if you knew the truth.” His smile was scarcely perceptible as she looked at him examiningly. “I like you the way you are.”

And maybe, it was all she needed to hear.

 

She offered him a poison, but also a chance to have his revenge, to redeem himself. She didn’t want him to die, but after all, death was the ultimate freedom. The roads we take all lead to it eventually.

Deep down, she hoped she would be able to save him. 

She was right, but now the load of responsibility rested on her shoulders. It was her turn to administrate justice, pledging her soul to the devil. But what had to be done had to be done, and no one but her could put an end to all that was started so long ago. Cornell killed Pete, Mariah killed Cornell, and it was only logical that now she killed Mariah. The circle was complete. Out of all the damned Stokes, only she remained alive.

 

“You miss me?” Conditioned air nicely cooled her skin, hot with Jamaican sun, and she grinned – maybe, too widely for it to be dismissed as something trivial. 

“No.”

She snorted, sweeping her quizzical eyes over John who was sitting on the couch – a feeling of déjà vu was almost palpable. 

“Liar.”

“Guilty as charged,” conceded he with a half-smile.

She sank into a chair across from him and watched him – more likely, scrutinized him with her doctor’s eye. He looked healthy – or, at least, much healthier than when they saw each other last. Nightshade actually helped him, it seemed. Tilda half-expected it to kill him, seeing how the previous overdoses had caused his body almost irreparable damage. Perhaps, he really was special.

“It’s over, Johnny,” finally said she, looking him in the eye. “Mariah is dead, and the last Stokes has died with her.”

 _Except for me_ , she wanted to add, but she’d meant what she’d said – she was tired of atoning for her mother’s sins, especially now, when she could so well do it herself in hell, right where she belonged. Tilda had enough those of her own; she didn’t need to overload herself.

He nodded slowly.

“The last one, huh?” asked he, challenging. She resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “”Who are you, then?”

“I don’t know,” she snorted a good-natured laugh. “Why don’t you name me?”

Something in his eyes changed, and if it had happened before, she would have surely wanted to run away, but now she was, in fact, ready to dive in headfirst. Mariah was wrong yet again. Tilda would never be alone. 

John reached out his hand, and she leaned forward, reducing the distance between them. He pulled her close to him, basically forcing her to fall. When she caught her breath enough to look up, her eyes lingered on his lips inadvertently before travelling to his own. They were so full of emotion that her breath seized up again; but perhaps, it was due to his heartbeat that she felt with her skin – and deep under. Their hearts seemed to get in tune with each other. She wondered if he felt it too. 

“You’re entrusting me with large responsibility, huh, T?” He didn’t ask, merely stating it as a fact. His voice was low. “But I think I can come up with something.”

“Really?”

“Uh-huh.”

Deep down, she realized that the climax was inevitable – that their hearts were beating too loudly, their pulses were too quick, the distance between them was disappearing too rapidly; a discharge of electricity overwhelmed her, nevertheless, rooting her to the spot, and she wouldn’t be able to escape, even if she tried.

She didn’t.

He lifted her up as if she was something evanescent and delicate, took her to the bedroom and laid her down on a double bed. For some reason, Tilda wasn’t even surprised to see the black sheets – it was minimalistic, elegant, and, first of all, dramatic. Her lips curled into a soft smile. 

He took off his shirt, but there was nothing new for her to see; his stomach, his chest, his shoulders, his tattoos – she had already seen it all when she healed him, trying to bring him back from the dead. Her eyes were trained to look for injuries, and her medical practice had taught her to regard a human body just as a machine with so many functions she was supposed to keep operating. He, on the other hand, watched her rather eagerly. She allowed a low chuckle past her lips and slipped off her thin shirt, letting it fall on the floor beside the bed. Then she bent over to remove her jeans, but he gently pushed her hands away, urging her to lie down again. She silently obliged, somewhat intrigued. He traced his fingers across her arms and shoulders and down her chest and stomach; he kissed her collarbones, then shifted, moving down. Taking her jeans off of her as if she was made of the finest porcelain, he kept on caressing her legs, her feet, every now and then leaving heated wet kisses on her delicate skin. With a fleeting touch to her inner thigh, he moved back up, tracing the curves of her lips with his thumb.

“How can you be so lethal when you are so gentle?” She clutched at the sheets, her blood bubbling with excitement. “I know… You’re Erzulie, that’s right.”

“Then you’re out of luck, aren’t you?” She grinned, propping herself up on her elbows. “I’ll try not to murder you in your sleep.”

He shook his head, unfazed. 

“It doesn’t matter. As long as you come when I call for you.”

It was the only thing that really mattered anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> Erzulie is a Vodou spirit of love and beauty, in some cases she is presented as a succubus. Anyway, I only had Google to aid me so give me some slack.


End file.
